Along with a health care reform bill, it would be a fitting tribute to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) if Congress could act on his other great unfinished cause: immigration reform.

For all his liberal Democratic passion, Kennedy understood — as few of his colleagues seem to nowadays — the importance of working on a bipartisan basis to get legislation passed.

He worked with President George W. Bush to pass No Child Left Behind education reform and a Medicare prescription drug law, though he ultimately opposed the final bill as insufficiently generous.

Kennedy’s death undoubtedly will elicit calls to get health care reform legislation passed in his memory, but reforming the immigration system was also one of his major goals yet unreached…

…Obama campaigned in 2008 promising that comprehensive immigration reform would be on his first-year agenda, but during a trip to Mexico this month, he said it had to be put off until 2009, an election year.

The administration is certain to call for swift action on health care reform as a tribute to Kennedy. But it also should accelerate work on immigration reform in his name.

The mad rush to capitalize on Kennedy’s death is yet the latest manifestation of Rahm Emanuel’s decree to never allow a crisis to go to waste.